Finding Calm at Deer Island; an exploration of the natural world near me. - 2020, Massachusetts.
It was as I began to experience this landscape, so familiar yet suddenly from this new vantage point, that I began to carry a camera with me on these walks. I began to capture the moments alone I spent here, with the intent of using them for reference photos for future drawings and paintings. However, I immediately felt upon looking through the photos at home, and especially after making some primitive proofs, that there was a new found serenity in these moments captured that had eluded my work for years.
For years, I spent much of my time driving over the small bridge between Amesbury and Newburyport. Each time I traversed the waters below, I would glance out the window longingly at the small expanse of land that lay between the two towns. I always kept driving though, some level of (anxiety, perhaps?) stopped me from pulling over to the small lot and getting out and going for a walk.
It wasn’t until returning to the North East after some time spent in Asheville, after the start of the pandemic in 2020, that I began to pull off the road, parking my car in the lot at Deer Island to watch the rain fall repetitively on my windshield. For months, I would sit there with music playing, writing or drawing. I had spent a lot of time in my car for the past few months, driving between states, occasionally stopping to explore a new area and stretch my tired legs. It was a new feeling to sit in my car and not go anywhere. The car had become a very sacred place for me.
I began to see others start parking near me, not near enough to become intrusive, but near enough for me to realize that I was not alone anymore. Some would stay just long enough to eat their lunch, before pulling out and going back to work, while some would sit there for about as long as me. I made an effort to not gaze though, for I knew that these people were looking for the same bit of respite that I had found in this new routine.
![]()
Then as the days became longer and warmer, I would turn off my engine, and leave the safety of my car to venture out onto the island. I particularly enjoyed the short walk down to a small outcropping of rocks and marshes on the Amesbury side of the island. There was one lone tree that clung to those rocks, with roots reaching out for holds in small crevices in the rock face. From there I could see eagles flying above, in search of small critters to sustain themselves.
The more time I spent there, the more I began to notice how the place felt during different times of day. On clear, calm days, the tides would be low enough that I could walk through the dank smelling mud to a smaller island (if I was willing to perhaps get a little dirty, and trudge through an inch or two of water). When there was more precipitation though, the river would almost completely overtake this landscape, and the connection to this smaller island would become impossible.
![]()
It was as I began to experience this landscape, so familiar yet suddenly from this new vantage point, that I began to carry a camera with me on these walks. I began to capture the moments alone I spent here, with the intent of using them for reference photos for future drawings and paintings. However, I immediately felt upon looking through the photos at home, and especially after making some primitive proofs, that there was a new found serenity in these moments captured that had eluded my work for years.
![]()
Perhaps it was these walks on Deer Island, perhaps it was spending so much time in the last year living in a completely different place, but I began to see the other landscapes near me differently too. I started walking through trails in Salisbury, through marshes and woods, and along the coast of the Atlantic, and over the mountains north of me in New Hampshire.
It wasn’t until returning to the North East after some time spent in Asheville, after the start of the pandemic in 2020, that I began to pull off the road, parking my car in the lot at Deer Island to watch the rain fall repetitively on my windshield. For months, I would sit there with music playing, writing or drawing. I had spent a lot of time in my car for the past few months, driving between states, occasionally stopping to explore a new area and stretch my tired legs. It was a new feeling to sit in my car and not go anywhere. The car had become a very sacred place for me.
I began to see others start parking near me, not near enough to become intrusive, but near enough for me to realize that I was not alone anymore. Some would stay just long enough to eat their lunch, before pulling out and going back to work, while some would sit there for about as long as me. I made an effort to not gaze though, for I knew that these people were looking for the same bit of respite that I had found in this new routine.
Then as the days became longer and warmer, I would turn off my engine, and leave the safety of my car to venture out onto the island. I particularly enjoyed the short walk down to a small outcropping of rocks and marshes on the Amesbury side of the island. There was one lone tree that clung to those rocks, with roots reaching out for holds in small crevices in the rock face. From there I could see eagles flying above, in search of small critters to sustain themselves.
The more time I spent there, the more I began to notice how the place felt during different times of day. On clear, calm days, the tides would be low enough that I could walk through the dank smelling mud to a smaller island (if I was willing to perhaps get a little dirty, and trudge through an inch or two of water). When there was more precipitation though, the river would almost completely overtake this landscape, and the connection to this smaller island would become impossible.
It was as I began to experience this landscape, so familiar yet suddenly from this new vantage point, that I began to carry a camera with me on these walks. I began to capture the moments alone I spent here, with the intent of using them for reference photos for future drawings and paintings. However, I immediately felt upon looking through the photos at home, and especially after making some primitive proofs, that there was a new found serenity in these moments captured that had eluded my work for years.
Perhaps it was these walks on Deer Island, perhaps it was spending so much time in the last year living in a completely different place, but I began to see the other landscapes near me differently too. I started walking through trails in Salisbury, through marshes and woods, and along the coast of the Atlantic, and over the mountains north of me in New Hampshire.